4.6 | Dark Ages ✓

- 2 0 : 0 0

 

– 2 0 : 0 0

HE FINDS HIMSELF standing in the middle of the same street. Only this time, it's not empty. He shoves his gun into his jacket, then notices a movement in his peripheral. He turns to look, then stills.

It's her.

Big brown eyes and a sunshine on snow smile. Her face buried in the pages of a book, she wanders distractedly off the pavement and onto the road. Right into the path of an oncoming car.

He doesn't think.

With a swift lunge forward, he snatches her by the arm and hurls them both towards the sidewalk. The blare of car horns floods his ears, followed by an angry slew of profanity from the driver, and the screech of wheels against the road. Going by the sudden whizz of air behind him, the car barely misses them by inches. His knee slams against the ground as he takes the brunt of the fall, but the surprised yelp by his ear catches his attention.

I've found her, is all he can think. I've actually found her.

He pushed himself up and looks down at the woman in his arms. No. It's not her. Not exactly. This woman is younger, much younger—just a girl. With the whites of her eyes still bright the way only children's eyes are, and her cheeks still filled with baby-fat, he's looking at someone who looks like her had she been about ten.

Or, maybe, it is her at age ten.

Suddenly, everything clicks into place. If he really has time-travelled, then this could be her. And, he realizes with a start, it could've been her stuck up in the tree. She'd been about four or five then, chubby and covered in mud, so he hadn't recognized her at first. And what about the drowning woman he'd saved? What had she said again?

Save me, please. I have a baby. I need to keep her—

—safe. His heart slams in his chest as he gazes up at the young girl now. That was her then, in her mother's womb. By saving her mother, he'd indirectly saved her. Was that why he'd been sent back in time—to save her in her past, because she'd prove to be instrumental in his future?

He shakes his head, disbelief warring with sudden fear. What if he hadn't saved her? What if he'd arrived a second too late? Hysteria sweeps through him and he clutches her shoulders, ignoring her gasp of surprise.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" he yells, shaking her roughly. "What the fuck were you thinking—reading while crossing the damn road? You could've died!"

She stares at him, wide-eyed, before her bottom lip begins to quiver. "Why're you yelling at me?" she whines piteously, twisting her arm to examine her fresh wound. "I didn't mean to, and this really hurts!"

He barely manages to keep from rolling his eyes. He might've dreamt of her, worshipped her as a goddess beneath his shut eyelids—but fucking hell, was she a handful when she was a kid! Sighing, he lifts her to seat her down beside him. "Come on," he says, holding out a hand to her. "Let me see."

She gives another sniff and juts her elbow in his face. He's so used to seeing blood and gore that he hardly bats an eyelid at her injury. It's just a small graze, and he carefully picks out bits of gravel from her skin, ignoring her whimpers as he does.

When she lets out a particularly loud "ow!", he gives in to his urge and rolls his eyes. "Stop being such a crybaby," he mutters. "This doesn't even hurt that much."

She glares at him. "You're a horrible man!"

"If I really were a horrible man, I wouldn't have risked my life to save you, you ungrateful brat."

She gasps and yanks her arm away from him. "Go away!"

Were she any other kid, he would've left her sobbing on the road a long time ago. He'd much rather face zombies any day than a weepy child. "Hold still," he hisses, clamping a hand around her arm to keep her from squirming away. "I'm trying to help you. Now stop being so obnoxious!"

"Obnoxious?" she shrieks. "Have you looked into the mirror lately?"

"Why should I when I can just look at you?"

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he's mildly guilty that he's actually stooped to insulting a child, but he's never met anyone who frustrates him so much. He wrangles her in a tight grip until he's finished plucking out the pieces of gravel. But as he does, something else registers in his ears.

Tick, tick, tick.

Clenching his jaw, he flicks off the last bit of dirt and lets her scramble away. It's just as well—as much as he wants to get to know her, this is her at age ten and not yet the woman of his dreams.

But if I let you go now, will I ever find you again?

He sits for awhile, watching her while she sulks next to him. He sees her now—the woman that she'll grow into. That chin will slim and sharpen, that bob of hair will grow beyond her shoulders and her neck will lengthen to a sleek slope that, in his dreams, he can't stop burying his face against.

Tick, tick, tick.

"Now you'll get your wish," he says quietly, "because I'm really about to go away."

"I don't need you to tell me that. I just need you to go—" She stops mid-sentence, her eyes widening as she looks up at him.

He wonders what she sees. Does the air around him move? Does he dissipate into thin air? Does she remember him disappearing again like he'd disappeared once before?

With a shriek, she scrambles over to reach for him. "Wait, don't go!"

But he's already gone.